抄録
This study describes and explores pragmatic competence and development of junior high school students in the case of requests, with a specific focus on request strategies such as 1) indirectness level, 2) syntactic/ lexical downgraders, and 3) supportive moves (e.g., Blum-Kulka et al, 1989). The date on those request strategies in this study were collected from a large body of students with a discourse completion test, and quantitatively analyzed using various statistical procedures. The results obtained show that, whereas the students improved the use of supportive moves as to the grade, their development in indirectness level and the use of downgraders regressed to a certain degree. Various causes of this regression will be discussed from theoretical and practical viewpoints.
